82 per cent of children now survive childhood cancer

New research from Cancer Research UK reveals that more than eight in ten children with cancer now survive, compared to just three in ten in the late 1960’s.

The increase in survival is largely due to tackling the disease by combining a number of different chemotherapy drugs, with Cancer Research playing a key role in the clinical trials that proved the benefits of these combined treatments.

The latest figures show that the survival has improved for all children’s cancers, but liver and bone tumours appear to have made particularly good progress in recent years. There is still some way to go with certain forms of the disease though and further research is essential to discover better and kinder treatments for all cancers.

For many children, surviving does not mean they are completely free of illness. Even 30 years after their diagnosis, 40 per cent of survivors were affected by severe or life threatening conditions, or had died due to a chronic health condition. There is still an urgent need to discover better treatments with fewer side effects.